Help...ish

[+KimP]

carbon should handle this I would think?

I was thinking the same thing. I hope that the carbon would prevent problems. How often did you change out your carbon?

[pbnj]

Don't dismiss the very real possibility that the hammer has been picked-at and eaten by one or more of your fish. It sure looks that way, i.e., it looks like it was ripped apart and the heads stripped clean. With decay/death, I would think you would see a much more gradual decline. The polyps that are dangling are still bright, neon green, not pale or sickly.

I recently discovered my Purple Tang eating a few heads of branching hammer. The heads looked exactly like yours while he was tearing away at them. This same Tang ate a whole trach/brain coral in a few days when I initially intoduced it to my 75g tank two years ago. No coral-eating incidents since then and now, 3 months in the new 135g tank, he's acting-up again.

[pbnj]

Experiment: Try covering the hammer colony with a cut-up, clear, 2-liter soda bottle (drill a few small holes for water flow). If you don't lose anymore heads, you'll know something's been eating it.

.....or, just move the affected corals to your sump for a few days. If it's disease or water chemistry, they will still continue to decline in your sump. If not, somebody's been snacking for sure.

[Robb in Austin]

I run carbon, but it hadn't been changed since the last water change in Feb; definitely old.

I did see the tang nipping at the dying heads, but he was ignoring the live ones. I won't discount it as a part of the problem but doubt it's the cause.

It looked ok when I left this morning, but I was looking at it with cell phone and fuge light lighting. We'll see what it looks like when I get home.

I'll also post a link to the WWM presentation later.

[Derek]

Interesting. I just noticed some new baby heads popping up below the newly dead ones.

I wonder if this die off I've seen is some type of self propagation method. Polyp bail out to

move the mother colony DNA around and new ones grow up to take the place of the former mother

ones.

Maybe I'll shoot an email to the Wet Web Media folks to see what they have to say.

Edit:

A few minutes of WWM research suggests allelopathy with zoos as a possible cause. Seems

plausible, due to an overall increase in zoa stocking since moving to the 75, but somewhat improbable

given running GFO/GAC at the same rate and media change as before. Think I'll just watch it for now.

And indeed, polyp bail out as a means of propagation does occur. Usually as a last ditch effort in response to

a environmental stressor.

I had a frog spawn drop heads like that before. It was because my tank had ammonia in it. It is a way for them to propagate if they are stressed.

[Robb in Austin]

Here is the link to the article/presentation for those interested:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/cnidcompppt.htm

I did some more reading tonight, and another possibility is light shock. Although I find this one to more difficult

to believe given that they've been under the current light for two months without difficulty.

[Robb in Austin]

Update:

After a few days of no losses, I started having more die off.

Today I dipped the remaining good heads in SeaChem's Reef dip after fragging them off the main skeleton. I no have 2 pairs and 1 solitary head left.

Hopefully, they will recover and grow back into the beautiful colony I had.